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[RD James]

When budget permits will do raid10 on my media ... while can rerip movies and music, it takes lots of time, so hopefully raid10 will minimize that happening

RAID is not a backup solution. It's an uptime solution.
As one example:

• If you accidentally delete your music library with RAID, it's gone, since it will be deleted from both disks immediately.
• If you accidentally delete your music and have a separate backup copy, you can restore it.

I use Backblaze myself as well, their unlimited scheme for a decent price is hard to beat, although I don't backup my full media (movie) library because of upload constraints (even at my decent 40 Mbit that would take a couple months to upload everything) - and I can re-rip my Blu-rays if I ever need to. So its mostly for more important data for me.

Yes, the initial backup would take a long time. However that's a long time of it running in the background while the system isn't doing anything - and it's the same thing for restoring files.
Assuming that Backblaze could saturate a good internet connection, transfer rates could be as fast if not faster than ripping from the disc, and it would be an operation you could leave running 24/7 rather than having to deal with the whole re-ripping process, which is particularly tedious for things like TV box sets.
 
My point was more that some media libraries are quite large, and there are companies like Backblaze which have far more affordable pricing for storage if it's being used as a backup solution (only used as a fail-safe) rather than a cloud storage solution (frequent access).

[tij]

i know raid is not backup solution lol ... my backup solution for music and videos atm are my discs (i know it does not cover theft and fire scenarios)

i only backup irreplacable stuff like photoes and homevideos to separate pc in different room (i know that does not cover theft and fire too) ... though CDs are becoming scarce too and some thing cannot be replaced anymore

Actually i backup my music rips aswell atm ... but video stuff is too heavy

RAID is only to decrease probability for me to waiste my precious time of reripping TBs of media again.

Cost vs risk vs practical ... this seems acceptable to me atm (cloud is not an option for me with 2Mbps internet ... and LTO tapes are too paranoid for my taste lol)

[RD James]

RAID is only to decrease probability for me to waiste my precious time of reripping TBs of media again.

You would be better off setting up a scheduled backup to run every night or once a week than using RAID.
If you back up once a week, that means you could potentially have to re-rip anything you ripped that week, but it also means that you could recover anything you have accidentally deleted or otherwise corrupted/lost in that time.

[Awesome Donkey]

You would be better off setting up a scheduled backup to run every night or once a week than using RAID.

Or manually syncing changes between the main and the backup as they occur, like I do. But yeah, I avoided RAID too when researching a "backup solution" a couple years ago.

[BryanC]

I would be more interested in a mechanism to sync Libraries (including data files) within MC.

[tij]

You would be better off setting up a scheduled backup to run every night or once a week than using RAID.
If you back up once a week, that means you could potentially have to re-rip anything you ripped that week, but it also means that you could recover anything you have accidentally deleted or otherwise corrupted/lost in that time.

Backup strategy is probably off topic lol ... suffice to say I am aware of raid not being backup ... and I do plan to backup “small stuff” like photos and music ... but bluray rips (lots of them) is gonna straight to raid 10 without backup

[flac.rules]

RAID isn't backup, but raid isn't just about uptime either, properly setup, it does decrease the chance of data-loss.

[tij]

RAID isn't backup, but raid isn't just about uptime either, properly setup, it does decrease the chance of data-loss.

Exactly ... all I want is decrease chance of data loss ... resisliance of primary array from beeing down due to loss of one of the drive

[jmone]

A few years ago My RAID controller and Windows CHKDISK had a fight.  I lost the lot and had to re-rip all my discs.  These days, I just pool my HDDs (using StableBit DrivePool) and then use FreeFileSync to periodically check for changes (and after I preview the suggested changes) commit them to my backup pool on another server.  These two pools are about 60TB each.  I also use ReFS over NTFS.  It is more expensive but beats having to re-rip my collection (in fact the backup pool is the hand me down drives from my main pool as I upgrade HDD capacity on it).  I've not lost a single file since using this strategy. 

[Hendrik]

I don't like raid controllers, because they are typically stubborn. Requires drives of the same size, and if too many fail, everything is dead and gone.

I use SnapRaid for software parity to protect against up to two simultaneous drive failures currently. And even if 3 shall fail at the same time, I only lose the data that was on those discs, and nothing else. The big plus of SnapRaid for me is that its not even a driver or anything like that, its just an application and it reads and writes the file system like any other app, so there is very little chance that it would somehow fight against the OS or anything like that.

But as others have said, such a hardware or software raid is not a backup, its just a first level of protection against single harddrive failure. For my ripped Blu-ray collection this backup currently is the optical discs I have stored away, just from the sheer volume of the data - which isn't going to get any smaller with UHD BDs. I don't have room for a second onsite storage box, and a cloud solution would require at least double my current upload bandwidth to not feel totally off-base.

[Manfred]

I have all my data (documents, media files ) on a central Windows 10 based MC server with ECC RAM and a server grade motherboard. I also use MC to catalog my documents, pdf's etc - MC as an archive.
I have the following strategy:

- All unique documents, purchased music downloads, photo's etc. and music concerts rip (my most loved material) is on 2 x 4 TB Windows Storage Space which I regular automatic incremental backup on an attached USB DISK. to the server. This disk I backup 1 x time HJ on a separate Disk which is put to a different location. (4 copies of data = original +mirrored content (High Availability) -> data USB disk->data on external disk put to a different location (Disaster Recovery))

- All mkv's (2 x 10 TB) I do only copy the data (static content) 1 x on separate old disk's which I have put to a different location (Disaster Recovery).

[Vocalpoint]

For me - nothing is really backed up until it exists in 3 locations. Local copy, server copy, offsite copy.

All our workstations (5) run Syncback Pro and twice daily backs up all new/changed documents, images etc over to our central server (16TB running Stablebit DrivePool with selective duplication) as the master data store.

Then that entire structure is sent up to Crashplan Small Business in real time - every hour of everyday.

For extra security on the most valuable of data (music and photos) I have another Syncback Pro process that copies data to a rotating series of 4TB enterprise drives that get taken to the bank safe deposit box at the end of each month.

This gives me the triplicate copies needed for and piece of mind on the key stuff. There is no RAID or optical disks anywhere in the entire process. Works great.

VP

[MikeO]

You sound as Careful (paranoid) as me


I keep everything in triplicate, server and 2 USB drives , I use Sync Back Pro shortly after any change to the library. It’s not necessarily daily but after a change.

I know I need an off site copy too. That’s on my plan

Mike

[dtc]

You sound as Careful (paranoid) as me


I keep everything in triplicate, server and 2 USB drives , I use Sync Back Pro shortly after any change to the library. It’s not necessarily daily but after a change.

I know I need an off site copy too. That’s on my plan

Mike

Why not run the backup daily? It will pick up any changes. I run various backups starting at 1 AM.  Most nights it runs for a short time and says there are no changes in my music files. But it picks up anything I do not do manually. Easy to set up with SyncBack. You can still run it manually when you make any significant changes.

[tij]

was forming backup strategy and hit a wall ... any tip greatly appreciated

backing music and photos was relatively easy ... size is not that big ... weekly full backup ... daily incremental backup ... keep backup for 2 weeks

movies and tv shows is puzzling ... i have original discs ... so losing rips is not end of world ... so what i really backing is time spend ripping those thing ... many many hours that i could have spend doing something else ... and not done yet

estimated finish library is probably around 30tb ... if doing like photo and music ... need at least 60tb for backup ... so what to do?

if just do incremental ... over time those incremental backup files will overun my disc (quantity wise ... not size wise) ... consolidating increments, usually create consolidated backup before deleting previous backup (aka need lots of disk space for that)

mirroring ... does not solve accidental deleting

so what ppl do?

[Vocalpoint]

estimated finish library is probably around 30tb ... if doing like photo and music ... need at least 60tb for backup ... so what to do?

There is real only one thing to do - take your chances with your existing single copies of your files (and hope nothing happens) or get off the wallet and set up duplicate onsite storage plentiful enough to handle creating at least one backup copy of everything.

Due to the size - it's probably not cost effective or time effective to try and copy 30TB up to Crashplan.

But if it were me - I would make sure I had enough storage available to house at least one on premise copy of all main files.

VP

[tij]

atm movies are disorganized on several SATA disk on main htps ... ran out of SATA ports lol

Bit bullet and getting NAS box with 2 SAS backplanes. Planning to run FreeNAS with movies in Raid 10 (mainly because easier to add disks to pool).

As suggested (when budget and wife permits) will put more disks on second backplane for keeping second copy there ... thx for advise

[antenna]

For me - nothing is really backed up until it exists in 3 locations. Local copy, server copy, offsite copy....

I have a similar backup philosophy.

The media files are located on a data server running a FreeBSD/ZFS raid array.

Each night, the data on the array are rsync'd to a removable, encrypted ZFS-based drive.

Each month the removable drive is moved to an offsite safe deposit box.  The drive that was in the safe deposit box is moved to a local fire safe.  The drive that was in the local fire safe is placed into the data server.  So there are three drives that rotate through the removable drive slot on a monthly basis.

Every couple of months, a test restore is performed using the drive in the fire safe, to assure that the data on it are both accessible and valid.

There is also a nightly rsync to an offsite data storage service (rsync.net) that is used for critical data.  That rsync can easily be performed on demand, if appropriate.

So far, the backup strategy has been good.  While I've not yet had to do a disaster recovery, I have used the backups to recover an occasional file that was prematurely deleted.   

[antenna]

... Syncback Pro...

btw, thanks for the mention of SyncBack.   This afternoon I checked out SyncBackFree.  I had been using xxcopy, but it seems the main developer for that product passed away a couple years ago, and it is no longer developed.

SyncBackFree has replaced xxcopy here.  I like SyncBackFree because I can set up a named backup "profile" via the most excellent UI, and then call that named profile via a .bat file in my various scripts.

It just works.  I like that aspect in backup software.  I like that aspect a lot.

SyncBackFree looks to me to be an amazingly capable product.  One of the best backup UI's that I've seen.

Thanks again for the mention.